Earlier this month, January 2008, I traveled to our West Virginia cabin to spend a few days. I needed to meet with our builder, our excavation guy, and cut a few trees to open up a mountain vista to the east.
When I arrived at 9am on a Friday morning, the temperature was 6 degrees. It had been 1 degree a few hours prior. I worked throughout the weekend and accomplished my tasks. By Monday, my last day, it was a balmy 62 degrees. I decided to spend the day hiking and exploring. I felt like a school kid skipping class!
There is a couple hundred acre parcel behind our 19 acres that leads up to the crest of the small mountain. I had never explored it, so I headed up the mountain on our road. Soon I was climbing over the gate onto the neighbor’s property. There were no structures on the land, and only hunters ever went up there.
I traveled up the dirt road, gradually gaining elevation. Meadows opened up to the north, a sight I don’t see on our heavily wooded parcel. Soon I was to an area where thick pine trees clustered along the north side of the road, but they grew from a 20-foot lower creekside area, so only the top 10 feet were exposed to me. They shown brilliant light green in the full winter sun.
Suddenly, a large bird the size of a crow burst from one of the pines and landed in another 100 feet ahead. Was that a pileated woodpecker? Could it possibly be?
I proceeded slowly up the road, knowing that I would come upon him again. Sure enough, as I got close, he launched out of the tree. His wings beating made a definite noise, almost a thumping. They were so powerful that I swore I felt the vibrations.
His large size and pronounced red pointed head confirmed that it was a pileated woodpecker. If indeed the ivory-billed woodpecker is extinct, then the pileated is now the largest woodpecker in North America.
He and I continued our hide and seek game. Twice more he flew 100 feet at a shot, landing in the pines ahead of me along the road. When he tired of my presence, he flew away from the road to the edge of a dense forest. Each time, his wings beating foretold that he was airborne again.
Now he hung to the edge of the forest, heading parallel to the road and back where we started. My view of his trajectory was unobstructed, so I continued to follow his progression. I didn’t move a muscle except for the slight turning of my head.
After 10 or 15 minutes, he finally flew deep into the woods. I had seen him in flight six times. I heard him fly three other times.
My hike continued another couple hours, but all the time I kept thinking about him. How magnificent he was! How fortunate I was to share some time with him.
I will be going back up the mountain the next time I’m in West Virginia. I expect to visit my feathered friend again. It’s the neighborly thing to do!
Mountain Man
Tags: blog, Cape May Court House, Green Bank, Real Estate, West Virginia, Wildwood